France’s National Assembly on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill that would allow doctors to put dying patients into a “deep sedation” until they die.
Some 436 MPs voted in favour of the legislation on its first reading, and only 34 voted against. It will now be debated into the upper house, the Senate. Some 83 MPs abstained. Most of those who opposed the measure came from the centre-right UMP and warned during the debate said it would introduce euthanasia “in disguise”.
Ahead of the vote, French Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders issued a joint statement rejecting the bill, similarly warning that it would legalise euthanasia without saying so.
“When it’s an issue of life or death, a human conscience cannot be at peace if it plays with words,” said the statement signed by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyons, as well as Orthodox, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish leaders, published in the Paris daily Le Monde. “Every human life must be respected, especially when it is at its most fragile.”
Loading ...
